


love is a fire that burns unseen

by FlightsOfFantasy



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: (Mostly by referencing his Mahabharata self), (Post-Main Story Pre-Lostbelt), (also as in a lot), (as in a lot), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, I Like Chaldea As A Setting, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Karna is the Goodest Boye but I'm trying to give him some depth, Marie Kondo Rules, Mentions of other Servants - Freeform, Mild Spoilers, Misunderstandings, Mythology References, No Shadow Border, Pretending the Lostbelts Don't Really Exist Yet, Very Soft and Very Dumb, gods don't need consistent pronouns don't @ me, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 03:08:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20369671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlightsOfFantasy/pseuds/FlightsOfFantasy
Summary: The Hero of Charity isn't selfish enough for a bitter god's liking. (Who would have thought?)Kama messes with Karna's head, and his heart, and, like everything at Chaldea always turns out, it's Ritsuka's problem.





	1. honey and lotus

**Author's Note:**

> This is self-indulgent, as all the best fanfic ought to be. 
> 
> Inspired by [this comic](https://i.redd.it/8mtpktu2i7211.png) and then spiraled thousands of words out of control.
> 
> Update: I didn't check what my fanfic seniors were up to before posting this, but I see we have not really been writing the Chaldea Master/Karna stories.
> 
> Become the content creator you want to see in the world, kids

Draw. Nock. Pull.

_Release_.

Even if he had sworn to neglect his duties as the God of Love in this borrowed form, let his sugarcane bow sour and his flowery arrows wilt, his archery can never worsen. The arrow cleaves through the air not unlike a sigh, a babe’s first breath of life, the movements just as intrinsic to his being as the act of living. 

It is all the warning Karna receives - he is truly _ Atimaharathi_, just the slightest susurrus of wind is enough to alert him of an incoming attack - and in Chaldea’s peaceful halls, it is not enough time for him to manifest his weapon and deflect it. The arrow threads past the vicious spines on his gauntlets, through the gaps in his golden armor as it shifts to protect him, because it makes him invulnerable, but only to a point. The divine gift from Karna’s father can only make it so that nothing mortal, demon, or god may fatally harm his child, but this is not a blow meant to truly _wound_ from a god stripped of their body into something neither mortal nor divine. The twisted stalk sinks into the ivory flesh of Karna’s exposed chest, thumb deep. He stumbles back, coughs, spraying a mist of blood down his chin - not the intended consequence, but the contrast of crimson over alabaster paints him stunningly. Invincible, but not immune to pain.

No one is.

Kama meets his fiery expression, welcomes whatever flames Surya’s child thinks can contend with the all-consuming wrath of Shiva that destroyed him bone and marrow and all, and _smiles_. It is sharp as an eagle’s talon tearing through a captured hare, only as malicious as the rule of nature and of beasts. Only as cruel as the world which delivers misfortune.

They both have been delivered so much; abandoned by those who should love them, stripped of their flesh, sacrificed for the benefit of another’s story. This is almost a kindness.

“It’s alright to be selfish sometimes,” he tells the Hero of Charity in his most soothing, melodious tone. The arrow unravels, blooms into a beautiful series of overlapping petals. Karna, frantic, clutches a fistful in an attempt to pull it out, but the roots of the God of Love’s _gift_ have taken around his heart. Petals and stalk alike disintegrate between his fingers, scattered on a non-existent breeze like dust, like ash. 

The scent of flowers cannot fully disguise the sharp and acrid undertone of charred skin.

Nothing can ever disguise the scent.

“Kamadeva,” Karna demands, lance in hand, armor melting away to become one with his weapon, "what have you done?"

Chaldea’s alarms for this sector blare, an automated recording decrying _unauthorized Noble Phantasm Release, all Servants in combat are to stand down at once_, and Kama takes his cue to depart. He is willing to bet his safety on being a Servant of Chaldea’s peculiar Master, but Karna’s mistrust of him has not waned even since being summoned as their ally, and while he would not kill Kama and bring harm to their Master, he cannot guarantee himself that he will not know pain. The Hero of Charity is still a warrior before all else.

_All Servants in combat are to stand down at once._

“We’ll see, won’t we,” Kama sings, akin to glass bells, in this body that resembles that of his wife and counterpart Rati rather than his own, as he slips into spirit form to avoid yet more fire.

_Stand down at once. Precautionary measures as decided by SHEBA and Trismegistus are leyline severance._

Karna charges, brimstone and fury, but even as Kama’s skin crawls to get away from the flames that envelop Surya’s child like yet another wasted gift, they are not Shiva’s, not able to reach him down to the soul, and he escapes into the ether. Karna roars in frustration, dispelling his weapon with a violent swipe that scorches a wall but pleases the automated system which chimes a _thank you for your cooperation_. He wipes the blood from his chin, presses a hand over his chest until the wound heals, glares in defiance at where Kama was, declaring without words that he will be victorious against the sadistic god.

It is an empty gesture.

Not even the most divine are immune to their own desires, especially not the bastard sons of gods who so clearly _want_ but refuse to allow themselves to _take_. Karna may be playing the ascetic, but Kama is not blind. He sees the Hero's Charity for what it truly is; denying himself of everything for the sake of a personal ideal. He can conceal his desires, bury them until even he believes he is without selfish urges, but you cannot hide from a god what they are made to represent. Kama sees through the facade, that what he covets most is what he has always coveted, what he lived wanting and _died_ wanting; affection. _Love_.

But Karna will never let himself take even what is being freely offered - and it _is_ offered. Unlike the Hero of Charity, Kama is not _stupid_, and sees that the same person Karna’s heart is fixated on is the one who is opening hers to him. It is an invitation; she will never push, and Karna will never pull.

So Kama, truant God of Love, will do it both for them. 

It is merely a whim, not benevolence. It is pity for one who is like him. It is a gamble taken with someone else’s fortune. There is a slim possibility - so rare in this unjust world - that revealed feelings could be reciprocated, and _finally_ someone who is deserving but unfairly denied will be given a small piece of what they are owed as restitution. Or, such hasty upending of their perilous, carefully balanced relationship could result in fear and resentment, breeding hatred much the same as a weed that flourishes where things have been overturned, left vulnerable and untended.

He will find pleasure in any outcome - though he is in no way impartial to watching a bridge be _burned_. 

All that remains is to wait.


	2. let me not become ash

Nothing much has changed since Kamadeva's attack. 

Karna has received his scolding from the staff members monitoring this sector, both for the damage he caused and the damage he _ could _ have caused. He accepts it without question - his temper in battle, particularly when faced with those he is unable to tolerate, remains a point of shame. It does not matter that he was provoked, the only one who threatened the safety of Chaldea with their actions is him. He makes his amends by scrubbing the burns from the floor and walls so that the staff doesn’t have to, and they can verify structural integrity more swiftly. All he asks is that Master not be alerted to what transpired; tensions are high enough with the advent of the remnant Singularities and harsher scrutiny from the Mage's Association, he cannot be responsible for the addition of more stress in the form of inter-Servant conflicts. No one was harmed seriously, she should not have to worry.

Kamadeva is nowhere to be found, even as Karna’s task takes him hours into the evening - but if the god has any sense, he will _ stay _ gone. His heart is charitable, but not so that he can forgive a former enemy attacking an ally unprompted with the intent of cursing them for their own amusement. 

Karna presses the heel of his palm to his chest where he was struck; it smells of fresh lotus blooms even though it has healed seamlessly, but it is still tender, like a bruise. Like something infected. That comparison is most apt, when it feels as if something is festering within him, giving him the symptoms of a mild fever. At worst, he feels dizzy, perhaps comparable to being drunk, but only in the sense that his limbs are a little heavy, a little loose and more limber than he’s used to. The most concerning aspect has been that he becomes more lightheaded if ever someone passes within arm's length - France's Rider offered her assistance with the cleaning, bubbling close as she always does, and Karna found himself leaning unusually into her space as well before declining. 

If this is the extent of Kamadeva’s abilities, he must be weakened by his pseudo-manifestation and limited by his strength as a Servant. Karna can resist this. Like a fever, maybe he will even recover from it all on his own, purge it from his system like a poison.

“Now this hallway is much cleaner than the rest of the sector,” one of the staff muses, crossing her arms. “But you did a good job, Lancer, thank you.” She lays a hand on his shoulder and presses, to accentuate her sincerity - she is one of their members from the Americas, where such casual physical contact is more common. The weight of her hand is _ more _ than he anticipates, almost pulling him down towards her.

“There’s no need to thank me,” he explains, glancing in her direction. Her hair bobs when she shakes her head, the colour vaguely reminiscent of Master’s--

His heart jolts forcefully, as if he’s been struck again, his body surging with adrenaline - but there is no attack, no wound, no arrow jutting from his chest. Just electricity in his limbs and where the staff member is still touching him. He shakes her hand away, stepping aside a safe distance, breaths sticking in his throat.

“Are you alright?” 

He can hear Master’s concern echoed in her voice, smells sugar and flowers, and he’s _ shaking_. “No.” It’s true, but it’s the wrong thing to say, because she approaches him, worried, and he’s still in the process of wrestling his own body back under control. “I apologize again for my recklessness,” he says to excuse himself, escaping down the hallways until the air is easier to breathe. 

As quickly as it came, the sensation disappears. The pain in his chest returns to a dull throb, the feverish symptoms no worse than they have been the past few hours, but Karna is still left reeling by the force of what overcame him. In an instant, it was as if his whole body would have vibrated itself apart if he didn’t have his fingers buried in her hair, feel each syllable spoken against his lips as he opened her up to him-

Karna bashes his head against the wall to his left.

No, he has been too prideful yet again, fallen prey to his own self-aggrandisement when he convinced himself that he could simply will this away. He is fortunate to have been thus far unaffected, but that is likely due to the grace of his divine parentage and not simply his own strength of spirit. It was foolish not to think of how the God of Desire's magic could be exacerbated by _ contact_. In Chaldea’s crowded halls, physical contact is of high risk, and that is not one he can afford to take when the wager is his own self-control. He needs this curse carved out of him as soon as possible. He will not give Kamadeva the satisfaction, _ cannot _ let him win.

He weighs his options in the brief moment he has in seclusion; Kamadeva will not remove this blight under pain of anything but torture or death, and will stay hidden until he has been suitably amused. A god’s influence, if not undone by their own will, can only be affected by similar levels of divinity. In Chaldea, those Servants with notable divinity are the older gorgon siblings, Ereshkigal, or Ishtar. The siblings are far too sadistic, and their Divine Authority is only on par with that of a demigod. Ereshkigal is quite reasonable and level-headed, though her jurisdictions over death and the afterlife are quite distant from Kamadeva’s. Ishtar, whose Authority as a goddess summoned into a host body is equivalent to his, with _ love _ as one of her many domains, is the most suitable choice. 

There is a slight problem; Karna is not very well acquainted with her, and remembers from the time spent in Uruk’s Singularity that she is both a flighty and a greedy goddess whose whims are even more inscrutable than most deities. She loves offerings, precious gems especially, and Karna has nothing like that to give; somehow, he can imagine the exceptionally critical voice of Uruk’s king advising him to chisel out the crystal in his chest and _ mayhaps, should the heavens be looking favourably upon you, she will be briefly satisfied with just its uniqueness! _ Finding her may also prove to be difficult, when he doesn’t know how the goddess chooses to spend her time in this large base. Searching Chaldea would be dangerous given his current state, and asking assistance of the control room would be equally dangerous because Da Vinci will want to study said state. He could ask Master, except, no, the weakness that causes in his knees makes him think he _ shouldn’t _ do that, and the strength of his desire to do it _ anyway _ knowing that worries him. 

He imagines this as a tactical exercise; removing the curse as his means to defeating Kamadeva. Stalling him out is useless now that he’s set his trap, so Karna has to prioritize speed in finding Ishtar above all else. As risky as he recognizes the commissary to be - the chances of encountering any number of curious or touchy Servants or staff members is very high - every Servant in Chaldea will pass through it at some point in the day. Really, they are spoiled here, treated as human beings who deserve respect, like the privacy of their own rooms, who are just as worthy of consuming precious resources and being allowed time for recreation and enjoyment. That includes food that few of them need to eat for sustenance, but make time for the sake of indulging in that human moment. Once there, he can find a place to watch the entrance, far enough from others that he might go undisturbed. As a precaution, he surrounds himself with his armor, uses it as a barrier rather than just as a shield; he no longer wears the large, spiked breastplate around the halls of Chaldea and hopes wearing it now will be enough to discourage people from approaching him. He bears it with the countenance of a man sixteen days into war - who cleaved the chariots and pierced with five shafts each five Panchala princes and defeated them all at once without suffering a single blow - parting those he crosses in the hall like the sea, and it allows him to make his way unhindered to the large automatic doors of the commissary. 

He can hear quite a bit of commotion inside, just before the doors slide open to allow him to enter, and perhaps Kamadeva’s scheme is merely one in a long line of misfortunes the heavens have chosen to rain down upon him; it’s dinnertime. While not _ crowded_, the room is far from empty, with staff member and Servant alike scattered across a number of tables, leaving only a few unoccupied in a way that Karna feels is safely far away from everyone else. 

He has barely stepped over the threshold when his chest feels split wide open and the sensation that struck him before returns, only tenfold. He is entirely overwhelmed by the scent of honey and lotus comparable to the most luxurious of perfumes, reserved only for the baths of princesses before their _ swayamvara_, but in such excess that it burns his throat and his eyes water until his vision is naught but a pale haze. He nearly crumples to his knees, his whole head stuffed with the fragrance so much that he can’t make out any of the conversations happening around him, every sound muffled like they are being spoken through wool.

“Ah! I love Emiya’s Hamburg steak!”

Except one voice. 

He stumbles towards it, blind, an infant set adrift in the Ganges desperately seeking the security of the shore. As he approaches, only knowing he is getting closer because whatever indiscernible things are spoken, the voice grows steadily louder with each reply, the fog finally begins to fade. The lid is lifted from the basket and the first hints of light are able to reach his eyes - it’s red, like a peek of dawn. The first scents that are not his birth mother’s _ sari _ wrapped protectively around him reach his nose - it’s clean, if sterile, like plain soap. Karna’s chest still feels raw, exposed, empty, but his weakness is gone, the smell of perfume fading, and his vision clearing into a tunnel focused on the owner of the voice.

It’s Master, speaking to the red Archer - Emiya - and the Tongue-Cut Sparrow while they fill her tray as the dinnertime queue moves along the counter. 

“You’ve _ never _ had real, house-cooked ramen?!” The Sparrow chirps with urgency. Master recoils minutely as if scolded, her skin reddened with shame. The way the colour saturates her cheeks is stunning. “Hakata ramen with pork broth! Buckwheat noodles, diced pickled ginger, spring onions, black mushrooms, sliced chashu, a leaf of nori and an onsen egg! I am aghast, as the proprietor of the enma-tei!”

“Aren’t you from Fukuoka,” Emiya asks, heaping a portion of edamame salad onto her plate. The small Caster of stories and Assassin of misty nights in line between Master and Mash - accompanied by the Berserker of the Americas - wrinkle their noses at the greens, so Master plucks a bean up and pops it into her mouth very deliberately. The children Servants giggle and chitter amongst themselves. The bow of her lip parts as she licks the remaining oil from her fingertips. 

“_Outside _ Fukuoka! I didn’t live in the city,” Master protests. “Of course I’ve had ramen before, just- Nothing I couldn’t get in ten minutes.” The Sparrow throws her hands up, turning to do a lap of the kitchens in disbelief.

“Well,” Emiya crosses his arms while Master takes her tray, “now I _ have _ to make some for you.”

“Don’t make it sound like a chore when I know you’re just excited to cook it!” She ushers the three children in front of her along, as they all clamour for ramen while toting their own trays of dinner. 

Karna is unable to do anything but watch her as she herds the young Servants away to a table with Mash’s assistance. Something the Berserker says sends her into a fit of laughter, the sound tying itself in knots around his brain, choking out all other thoughts. He is only able to see her, a young woman who has looked through the loop of Yama’s noose to focus on the horizon beyond that she still seeks to reach, who is able to laugh so beautifully even though she has stood in the shadow of death. What he wouldn’t give to wrap himself in that sound and never know anything else. The oppressive aroma of Kamadeva’s curse may be gone, but it is replaced by the smell of whatever generic Chaldea shampoo is provided to each member of the staff, except for how it mingles with her hair, and, oh, how he imagines it will look haloed around her as she lay beneath him--

Karna still has the presence of mind to cut that image off at the root, before it is all he can think of.

His heart pounds wildly. He does not know how much time has passed, if it has at all, so consumed by his own desirous thoughts. So _ that’s _ what it’s supposed to do. _ That _ is how powerful an angry god’s malediction is.

He needs to leave, didn't anticipate just how he would be compelled to go to her, but the seat Master selects at the table her Servants have chosen faces him directly. The full vision of her, awash in the fluorescent light of the facility causes his heart to briefly stop. It is so deeply unflattering, draining her of colour, bringing attention to each wrinkle and flaw in her skin but Karna can only revel in how it reminds him that she is human; burning herself up, a single star in a dark and empty cosmos that still gleams until it can no longer because it's what stars do. She will burn herself to save the whole of human history. As much as he wants to clasp that radiance in his hands, capture it, protect it, keep it so that it lasts as long as possible, he _ couldn't _\- to restrict her like that, rob her and all who meet her of the beauty of her humanity would be unforgivably selfish. Instead, he thought to be content to follow her on her path and stand vanguard alongside that star, until he is finally consumed by its growing brilliance, burning up with her.

As she moves to sit, she catches sight of him, and her whole face lights up, freckled with stardust. His heart soars, thinking he is the cause of such joy. “_Karnacchi!_” She calls to him as she always does, and he could just drown in that familiarity. “What’s up, I haven’t seen you all day!”

He gravitates towards her like she is the sun - _ O’ Surya, forgive him _ \- helplessly caught in her orbit. She slides out from behind the table to meet him halfway, not even pausing to set her tray down, and the pain in his chest blossoms into something _hungry_, something endless and ravenous he knows will never be satisfied but _ aches _ to pull her against him to see if it can make him whole.

“Heyo,” she starts, preparing for their high five-handshake, “Chaldeluxe!”

He can’t reply in kind, his tongue heavy and useless in his mouth. His attention is captivated by the line of her waist, exposed by her raised arm. The instruction ingrained in him by his teacher echoes in his mind; _ an opening a warrior leaves is an oversight, but an opening a warrior neglects is a failing_. When he reaches out, it’s not for her hand like she expects, but around her side, his arm settling perfectly against the small of her back, seeming as if she is made for him. She’s all but weightless as he draws her towards his heart--

“W-Wait, Karna-san,” her voice is nervous and a little panicked, “I’m holding food-!”

The tray hits Karna’s breastplate - the unexpected bump enough to briefly give him pause and release her from his grip - and rebounds harmlessly back into Master, whereupon it spills its contents all over her Chaldea-issue uniform. Her salad bounces across the tile as the tray clatters with it, the carefully rounded beef patty of her steak sliding off her chest and hitting the floor with a messy splat.

Caster speaks first, “_And Cinder-ella did not need cruel sisters to make a mess, in front of the prince she stumbles and spills food all-over her dress!_”

Master’s cheeks go rosy again, turning towards the table and chiding Caster with a sharp, “Nursery!” But it cannot distract him this time, not from the splatter of colour pouring down the length of her sternum; deep red over white, like fresh blood from porcelain skin. His first instinct is to try and help, extending a hand to wipe it away - mind spiralling at the prospect that she is hurt, terrified by the realization that he, clad in armor and spikes to repel others, could have been the cause--

He is no longer in the cafeteria. He is collapsed over a chariot in a ravaged field, staring up at the form which eclipses the sun, primed to deliver onto him his death. He is a man who has earned this fate through pride, through blind loyalty, through violence and the uncritical support of it, through the cruelty that bullied a good woman and attempted to sully her virtue purely as a means of shaming his rivals. It is his actions, the hurt he has chosen to cause, that have led him unerringly to this seventeenth day of war. He does not begrudge his half-brother his hatred, knows how it feels to nurture grief and rage, knows charity cannot outweigh the sins of a man who wielded his every gift as a weapon when necessary. He knows, even as he begs for it, that he does not deserve a moment's mercy. 

Master is watching him with naked concern, heedless of her own discomfort or embarrassment at his hands - hands which have broken fathers and mothers’ hearts, and have not yet given enough in reparation.

He does not deserve her. 

“I'm so sorry, Master, please, excuse me.” He bows his head and takes a broad step back, despite how his entire body protests, an agony like the burn of Surya’s dagger carving away his flesh to release his armor echoing through every cell. 

“Karna, hold on-” She makes to follow him, but is stopped by Assassin wrapping herself around her leg. The girl has two beef patties speared on the ends of her knives, dripping sauce like gore from a murder scene.

“Mama,” she holds up her weapons, “food fight?” 

“No, Jack, _ not _food fight!”

It is cowardly, it is shameful, but Karna flees in the moment she is distracted, before she calls out to him again and he is rooted by the sound of his name spoken in her voice alone. His flight takes him across the facility, to a dark and unused corner of the complex; a barren wing, damaged by the initial attack that marked the beginning of the end and then abandoned without the staff who used to attend it. Any life to be had in this desolate place is gone from here, and Karna yearns for the comfort of his own room, except, to find a Servant in Chaldea, the first place to look is their personal rooms. Right now, he cannot afford to be found. 

The effects of the curse have become unbearable. It aches, now, no longer something he can willfully ignore, like a starved tiger who has tasted the blood of men pacing the outskirts of a village. It tears away at him, a yawning void that is slowly, steadily, growing within him the longer it is not fed. Trying to revert to spirit form is agony, so Karna curls into himself as if he might contain it, pulls his cloak of flames around his body for whatever modicum of solace its warmth can provide him. He knows what will satiate it -_ who _ will - but that is impermissible. Just being near his Master spirited away any semblance of reason he had, he is under no impression that he could soothe this need with anything less than the knowledge of how it might feel to surround himself in her, know how her warmth differs from fire while pressed flush to him, how ecstasy tastes on her skin--

His head finds the wall again with a sobering _ crack_. His vision swims from the blow, and he presses the heels of his palms over his eyes. He could scream. He wants to, just as he wants to throw his lance through the mountain upon which the base is perched and watch it crumble to release _ any _ of his tension. A number of _ asanas _ to help calm his body and spirit pass through his mind, but he is ironically too agitated to even attempt a single posture. Karna has no doubt that Kamadeva is watching and spitefully hopes he finds his pitiful form sufficiently amusing, because he will stay here until the curse fades or Kamadeva’s interest does. 

Even if it takes days.

Not for the first time - but for the first time so strongly - does he miss his mother, does he crave her comfort and her reassurance, the love of a woman who never once looked down upon him even after she bore sons of her own flesh and blood. He was never more blessed than when he was discovered by her, and his greatest mistake was not throwing his life away to war, but was instead not recognizing that he needn’t have fought so hard to be loved by the world when he was so loved already. What would Radha think of him, were she here to see him cowering in a corner like this? Could she still be proud of her son? Sink her fingers into his hair and praise his endurance, tell him he has been strong to not give in to his urges and take from an innocent woman what he desires without regard for her? Would she disapprove of his pride? Advise him to swallow it down, beg the God of Love for pity if he must because triumph is never worth torturing himself? 

_ Karna_… 

Whatever her council, he welcomes it, imagined or not.

“_Karna._”

His eyes snap open. That is _ not _ the voice of his mother. 

“_Karna,_” Master’s voice rings in his mind, “_can we talk, please_?” She is using the bond of their contract, the touch of her magic tentatively seeking him out so she can speak to him directly. Outside of battle, she is hesitant to communicate this way; the flow of words is easier, but it is difficult to conceal one’s thoughts and she worries it’s a breach of privacy. “_It’s been hours and no one has seen you._” He does not hear her voice so much as he _feels_ it, reverberating through his whole being. He shudders as it plays along his nerve endings, igniting them. 

It takes everything in his power to close his mind off so that she cannot hear whatever breathless response his brain conjures in reply. He could simply break the connection - her magic is still immature, potential that’s been neglected too long and only roughly been honed by necessity - but his resolve is already weakening. The cavernous hunger in him gorges itself on just the sound of her.

“_I’m not upset about earlier in the cafeteria, alright? I really just want you to come talk to me face to face._” She pauses, leaving him time to answer. When he doesn’t - _ can’t _ \- he is able to hear her distressed exhale. It twists like a blade in his ribs. “_I__’m worried._”

He wants to give in. Desperately, he wants to go to her more than anything, but he _ knows _ better. Even though he would sooner return to the Throne than do anything untoward, he can’t guarantee he will be able to maintain control of himself if just hearing her is enough to make him forget why he cannot simply be at her side.

“_I can tell that you hear me, I feel it in the bond, you know._” He is resolute, even in the face of her disappointment, even if it leaves him hanging by a mere spider's thread of reason. “_Okay. If you’re going to be difficult, so will I._” The next words echo through his head with the increased force of her mana concentrated behind each syllable. “_By the power of this Command Seal-_”

Suddenly, his heart is in his throat. The compulsion of the command is already settling over him without the incantation even being complete. Those are _ precious_; she is in the unique position of having multiple Servants contracted to her with only three Command Seals, which, by virtue of the catastrophe afflicting the planet, replenish each time she repairs a Singularity, as if the world is granting her a boon for restoring part of its foundation. Between Singularities as they are, she will be without one of her limited three spells once it is identified, which could spell _ disaster _ against a powerful enemy. 

“_I__ order thee, Lancer _-”

Karna immediately appears before her, ahead of her finishing the invocation of the spell. Her right arm is still raised, but with three disparate strokes of red still emblazoned on her skin. He is only momentarily relieved; he recognizes this as her room, even without seeing the various souvenirs from their journey and the gifts from a number of her Servants decorating her shelves. She has divested herself of the jacket he ruined, sitting on the edge of her bed wearing only the black halter top and skirt of her uniform - and a pair of brightly coloured knit socks with tiny dogs embroidered at the ankles. There is nothing separating them but for a few feet of empty air and his willpower, and he would not swear by it, not when just the sight of bared skin is making him dizzy.

Karna drops to one knee, lowering his head. His form is all wrong, but he attempts _ pranayama _ regardless, until he's virtually stopped breathing, in hopes that restricting his senses will keep him from falling apart. If he can’t smell her, he won’t be compelled to bury his face in the arc of her neck; if he can’t see her, he won’t need to learn the path created by the labyrinth of scars that cover her skin, and discover where it leads. 

“See, that wasn't so hard,” she teases good-naturedly, “was it?”

He could almost laugh; being by her side is never difficult, even without a curse plucking the strings of his emotions like an expert musician at the strings of a _ rudra vina _and making him crave being closer still. What’s difficult is maintaining his composure when she is nearly within arm's reach, he need only stand up and crowd her back further onto the bed-

“Master,” he says, digging his nails into the underside of his leg, “you shouldn't joke about wasting your command seals on something like this.” 

She clicks her tongue in displeasure, her tone defensive against his lecturing. “It's not a _ waste _ to make sure my Servants are in good condition.” She slides off the bed and he hears her feet shuffling across the floor towards him. “I’m helpless without you,” she reminds him softly, “so you have to tell me if anything is wrong.”

The shame that washes over him helps to keep him rooted to the floor, even though he can see the knit yellow fabric covering her toes in the fringes of his vision and knows he could sweep her off her feet effortlessly from this distance. If he desires her so strongly it might as well be mania, so be it, but it should not negatively affect her - she should not have to know of anything that afflicts him, lest it endanger her, to save her the turmoil she will feel as an empathetic person. That he’s caused her to worry because he has been careless and completely undisciplined cuts him deeply.

“It will pass,” he assures her, long past the point of pretending there is nothing wrong, “and you ought not worry. I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.” His tongue is a spear, his words and their meaning blades that he wields with the same abandon as he does any weapon on the battlefield. He means for it to frighten her the same way an arrow that passes close enough to disturb her hair would, to make her turn her concern away from him and not look too closely.

It is the same wickedness that that demanded the public shaming of a woman unjustly gambled away as she correctly argued its injustice, the same hypocrisy that decried the mixing of castes when a Brahmin succeeded where he, a charioteer’s son, failed. 

Her weight shifts - he hears it more than sees it - and he is prepared for her to send him away, as she should. This will not be the first time he has hurt her with his words, but it will be the first time he has actively held them like a sword to her throat. Then, she settles, and he can only see the barest sliver of her thighs as she kneels down in front of him. 

“Karna, look at me.” It is not a demand, or an order, but a plea. It is patient. It is kind. She has seen how his hand shakes on the hilt of the blade and asks him to lower it.

She could ask him to shoot the moon from the sky and his penitence towards Chandra would fall from his lips at the same moment as his lance leaves his hand. 

Kneeling carefully in the _ seiza _ style, she is shorter than he is, but Karna still feels like he is looking up towards the heavens when he finally lifts his face. There is unmistakable melancholy in her eyes - a hurt that he tried to deliberately place there - though it is overshadowed by the pure and simple happiness that blooms over her visage once his head is no longer bowed. Before her, he is not Anga-Raja, Duryodhana’s trusted general, _ kshatriya, _ worthy of being called Arjuna’s rival. He is barely beloved Radheya. He is the outsider in decorated palace halls, the ridiculed child in Hastinapur, the lowly _ suta-putra _ who is not worthy to string the bow and win the lovely princess’ garland, clinging to that gentle expression as one of the scant few boons he will ever receive.

“There you are. How can you even look paler than normal,” she asks, an amused smile catching on one corner of her lips and tilting her mouth in a way that also tilts Karna’s axis along with it. She slips a hand under his bangs before he has time to react, holding the other to her own forehead and looking immediately concerned. Both her hands come to cup his face. “You're burning up…!” 

Of course he is. The heat of her is unbearable, more potent than his own divine father at the height of the day. It sears through him. It races through his veins under his skin where no armor can protect him. If this is how it feels when he swallows enemies with the flames of _Agni_, he will perform penance until Brahma himself descends to relieve him of having caused such excruciation. Perhaps this is penance, here, now, where every place touched by her warmth is left so cold by its absence that he may die without it. 

It takes all he has to not simply melt into her, and to form coherent words, “We've established that my body temperature is higher than most-” 

“Shut up. You're _ sweating_.” She leans back on her knees again, arms half-crossed over her chest as she chews on the side of her thumb in thought. Karna chases them until his chest hits his knee and he remembers why he definitely _ cannot_ do that. “Can Servants get sick…?” She is up and halfway across the room as she mumbles it to herself, searching through the spines of the tomes that cover most of her desk. 

He should leave. As soon as his limbs are anything but molten liquid, he will.

She paces, stops, paces again, and stops in front of him. “What can I do to help?” She all but insists, and his answer sticks in his throat. What he _ should _ say and what he _ wants _ to say war in his mind; she could call for Ishtar, or even Kamadeva, and have this curse removed, or-- “Do you need mana?”

He startles so badly that she jumps back from him when he surges to his feet. He is torn painfully between the pressing need driving him towards her, and his sensibilities demanding that he be as far away from her as physically possible, paralyzed and quaking in the middle of two opposing forces. “I-” She is _ offering_. Just the prospect sends his mind into overdrive, every unbidden image he has thus far repelled laying siege to his thoughts; every way he could kiss her, every sound he could tease out of her, every inch of skin he could trace with fingertips, tongue and teeth--

“You've never asked for mana so I started to assume you must not need it…” She's still speaking to him, her fingers twisting together as she tries to justify her offer. His reaction must have startled her in equal measure, if it hasn't made her think he doesn't want a mana transfer from her altogether - on which account she could not possibly be more wrong. “I'm sorry I didn't notice you needed any, but that's fine!” 

“No-” It is really not. Her solution is to the wrong problem, and it's only going to worsen this one. Just the faintest brush of her magic in his mind was enough to crumble his resolve, he can't be sure his rationality will survive her actively filling him with it. 

“We can easily fix that!” 

“Master-” However she intends to transfer some of her mana to him is _ not _ how Karna is envisioning it, even if a cold and self-serving voice at the back of his mind is trying to convince him that it _ is_; she _ offered_, she knows what it means, but even if she doesn't, she won't _ protest,_ not when he can see a telltale blush creeping up the back of her neck--

“Now's the best moment anyway, I've got plenty of time to rest with no Singularities to worry about, so just say the word."

_ Yes_.

"No," he asserts, louder, admonishing himself most of all, "I’m fine. You shouldn’t worry."

"You keep saying that, but you’re clearly not." Her voice has taken on a desperate quality that he knows is from frustration, but, in his agitated state, ignites something at the base of his spine that rockets straight into his brain. “Let me help you,” she pleads, reaching for his trembling hands--

He recoils, and the betrayal on her face is torture, but he can’t let her touch him again, not when he is a bowstring strung so tightly as to snap. He feels less than human, a thin veneer of a man pulled over a barely contained mass of desires piled up like kindling just waiting to be ignited. 

He turns towards the closed door of her room, ready to put his hand through the keypad if it means it will open faster. He can’t stay here. He needs to leave.

"Karna, _ please-_" She lunges forward, her fingers finding the space above his armor at the elbow and, despite strength enough to wield multiple divine _ astras_, he is anchored there, the whole of Earth's gravity nothing compared to her existence. He ought to flee, to shake her away, escape the temptation that is her presence, so greatly augmented by the curse, but he can’t-- The warmth of her hand sinks into his bones, sets him alight, and he _can’t_\--

He rounds on her, hands clasped as gently as he is able around her head, and he is swallowing down her shock, breathing his own sigh of life back into her. The curve of her lips is truly just as dangerous as _Vijaya_. Briefly, he wonders if this is why his birth mother chose the Sun of all the deities when she invoked her mantra, if she too was dazzled by warmth and comfort and the taste of such brilliant light. 

Master makes a surprised, whimpered sound that Karna devours as his fingers thread into her hair and he coaxes her lips open, urgently seeking _ more_ \- more heat, more sounds, more-- 

His armor sublimates, his presence of mind rapidly fading as every bit of his being is devoted to her reactions, but enough remains to think of discarding the spikes lest they get in the way of him drawing her even closer. One of his arms winds around her waist again, settling _ so _ perfectly around her he need only curl his forearm to have her pulled flush to him. Her arms press against his chest - the frisson of delight that courses down his spine is electric - and this time the noise from the back of her throat is unmistakably a quiet moan.

He cannot differentiate between the heady feeling of her mana pouring into him and the effect of simply having her, intoxicated by both and yet not satisfied by either. He lifts her with one arm effortlessly - her breath hitches - depositing her onto her bed. She sinks into the comforter, chest heaving. 

His mental image did her no justice; her lips are puffy and slick from his ministrations, her eyes half-lidded and alluring, every last hint of light suffusing across her hair so that it is a brilliant corona around her head. 

Why did he ever deny himself this?

He crawls over her, trapping her with the cage of his body, unwilling to lose this moment, a thief laying his hands all over the precious gift the heavens have only temporarily granted the world. The expanse of her exposed skin begs to be traced, memorized, and Karna caresses the now-familiar curve of her waist down, around, and back up to her abdomen, his fingers stealing under the hem of her top. Her back arches when his fingers dip into her belly button, eyes wide and searching. He has no answers for her, only an incendiary need that he has to fulfill or he, sired of the Sun god, will burn away to nothing. He descends on her throat, teeth scraping the hard edge of her jaw and nipping below her ear, soothed by his tongue laving over her skin, desperate to taste. It is exactly as he imagined, and he is a starved man relishing in the burst of sweetness that finally sates him. 

He slots one leg between hers, his knee bracing at the juncture of her thighs, and she goes rigid.

“K-Karna-” Her voice cracks as the hand mapping her skin trails over the fabric of her skirt to her knee, cupping it before plunging down the tender flesh on the underside of her thigh, holding it in the crook of his arm so he can press closer still. “This isn’t… What-” She muffles a strangled noise into the back of her fist when his teeth sink into the joint of her neck and shoulder.

"Master,” he manages, panting as he pulls away to meet her gaze. “Sorry, but…” The last remnants of his sober mind understand her hesitance, helpless to stop himself, captive to the all-consuming hunger that has overtaken him. He is no longer in control, but if she truly does not want this, she need only say so, and no amount of curses could force him on her. It will devastate him - to be denied by her will collapse him, leave him with a chasm that can never unknow how it feels to have her even just like this, and he would accept a thousand of Arjuna’s arrows rather than face that fate - but he will abide her wishes without question. His free hand lifts her chin, his thumb tracing her lower lip as he speaks the words directly against her mouth, “I don’t want to stop."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karna came home to me on CCC banner and I've been in love ever since
> 
> But not so in love I was magically gifted the technical skill to write the implied smut guys sorry...


	3. a defeat, a victory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > Love is a fire that burns unseen,  
a wound that aches yet isn't felt,  
an always discontent contentment,  
a pain that rages without hurting, 
>> 
>> a longing for nothing but to long,  
a loneliness in the midst of people,  
a never feeling pleased when pleased,  
a passion that gains when lost in thought. 
>> 
>> It's being enslaved of your own free will;  
it's counting your defeat a victory;  
it's staying loyal to your killer. 
>> 
>> But if it's so self-contradictory,  
how can Love, when Love chooses,  
bring human hearts into sympathy?  

> 
> Luís de Camões

She should have stopped him.

Ritsuka stares at the rumpled sheets where Karna had been laying until moments ago, one hand pressed tight over her mouth to hold back either tears or nausea - she’s not sure which one will come first.

She had known something was wrong with him the moment he didn’t greet her with their ridiculous _ heyo, Chaldeluxe _ handshake. She knew it was something serious when he didn’t respond to her until she threatened him with a Command Seal, she knew it was something he had no control over as he avoided her every attempt to help like it was poison, but she still pushed because she couldn’t bear to see him suffering. She knew it could not be _ Karna _ that held her down and kissed her the way he did, who wrapped his arms around her and tried to erase any space between them like she was the missing half of him, but it looked and sounded and _ felt _ like Karna. That was enough.

Even though it was wrong to do _ anything _ in his state, she, the one with the power to stop it, didn’t.

And when he collapsed, finally spent, she thought, maybe, it might be fine. When she woke up before him, able to wiggle out from under his arms without disturbing his comfortable sleep to clean up, she thought, it must be fine. When he eventually came to, blinking groggily, and looked up at her, sitting against the headboard in an oversized shirt because she wasn’t quite ready to face the day - and had honestly been enjoying Karna’s unguarded, lax expression - she thought oh, how selfish she'd been.

His peaceful expression morphed rapidly into _ terror_, and he shot upright. Before she could even get a word in edgewise, he changed into spirit form and was _ gone_.

Then the nausea started.

She heaves a few times before she finally has the sense to look away from where Karna was, throwing a pillow into the spot to cover it up. Even better, she rolls off the bed - wincing slightly when her feet hit the floor - and fluffs the comforter, making her bed more meticulously than she has in years so that it looks like no one has ever slept in it. It makes her feel somewhat less like a monster, even if she can't erase all the evidence; it's etched into her skin, echoing throughout her body. 

Not that he was rough, no, that might have made her see sense. He was so careful, reverent, terribly gentle except when she begged him not to be. 

And she took advantage of a man who could do that despite clearly not acting on his own will.

Ritsuka slaps both hands over her cheeks so hard it makes her skull ring. She has to stop - not thinking about what she’s done, she isn’t going to let herself forget that, but hiding in her room and languishing over what happened. She won't be able to make amends that way - if Karna will even forgive her--

One step at a time.

What she has to do first is put some clothes on, get out of this room, and then figure out what happened. She tosses her comfy shirt over the back of her desk chair for now, reaching for her Chaldea uniform when she catches sight of herself in the closet mirror. Her face burns, so ruddy it nearly matches her hair, seeing the smattering of deep red marks clustered around her neck, chest, and even a significant number of them on her thighs. Approaching the mirror, she can see the extent of them; a dozen decorate her throat like a necklace, and she tugs her hair down as much as she can to cover it in complete embarrassment. It seems very deliberate, more so than whatever individual ones serve as a simple reminder of where his mouth had lingered. She wishes she could revel in it, living the dream she’s been harboring for _ months_, but it just makes her nauseated again. Even wearing dark tights and a black tank top under her uniform, she’s paranoid that someone might still notice, so she opts for the mystic code designed to resemble the Mage Association Uniform. Shorts and a high collar make her feel a little less like she’ll be doing a walk of shame leaving her own room.

She can’t cover _ everything _ up, though; she’s walking more stiffly than normal as she curves through Chaldea’s halls, but she can’t do much about that. Thankfully, she’s nearly found her way to the Command Room and no one has commented on it - until she passes Nero, who smiles far too widely for comfort. Ritsuka doesn’t even care that it looks like she’s running away - she is - as she hurries around another corner before the emperor can ask for all the beautiful (read: sordid) details. 

Da Vinci and Holmes both focus on her stilted gait as she enters the Command Room, and she burns with shame. Of _ course _ they can tell. Holmes opens his mouth, an inquisitive eyebrow raised, but Da Vinci graciously grinds the end of her staff into his foot and smiles at her knowingly.

“Ritsuka-chan!” She is entirely too cheery for Ritsuka to feel at ease. “How can we help you?”

“Actually, I was hoping I could see the surveillance footage for yesterday?” Karna had been fine - as far as she knows - until yesterday, and whatever happened to him must have occurred before he showed up for dinner. She has a few theories; Karna offering to be a test subject for Paracelsus’ elixirs, for example, because it wouldn’t be the first time, but she wants to check before she starts making any assumptions. 

“Hmm?” Da Vinci looks her up and down, and Ritsuka regrets trusting her to not make fun after she stopped Holmes. The detective has the audacity to look at her like _ I could have told you so_. “Whatever for? You know there aren’t cameras in anyone’s private quarters.” 

Doctor Roman’s fluffy head pops up from behind one of the monitors facing away from them, and Ritsuka nearly jumps because she hadn’t known he was even there. His mop of white hair blends him seamlessly against Chaldea’s white decor. “Why would you think she needs something like that, Da Vinci-” His eyes flash bright gold the moment he looks at her, and then suddenly he’s barely a foot away, a trembling mass of nervous doctor floating two inches above the ground in front of her. 

She’s still not used to it; Doctor Roman is Doctor Roman, but he’s also Solomon. Even though Ritsuka thinks he’s earned it after his attempted sacrifice, and they have Grails to spare from their journeys - the manufactured ones from Goetia still just as functional as any real one - he refuses to make a wish to become fully human. As long as there’s a threat to humanity, he says he’s more helpful with the powers of a Servant, so he’ll wait until things are finished before he tries the _ mortal thing _ again. 

“R-Ritsuka-chan, are you alright?” His gloved hands shake around her arms like he wants to put them on her shoulders but doesn’t know if he should. “W-What happened? Do you need anything? Painkillers? Chocolate? M-Muscle relaxants? Something else??”

He didn't see her walk in. 

“Was that Clairvoyance?”

He stops fretting for half a second. “Hm?”

“Did you…” She can't look him in the eye, still remembering the flash like molten gold from before - something distinctly magical. “_See_?”

“W-Well, no, not-” His cheeks actually darken. “Not really, more like, flashes of… Something?” His demeanor makes her think of a father trying to be understanding after finding his daughter hiding some dirty books, and even if over these last few years he’s the closest thing to a father she’s ever had, she still wants to _ punch him_. “I don’t have much control over when it happens if I’m not-”

Ritsuka puts her face in her hands. It's probably karma, but her day is bad enough without being embarrassed out of her mind. “Can I _ please _ just see the surveillance footage?”

“Yeah,” Doctor Roman relents, nodding solemnly in the face of her exhausted plea, “let's get you set up at a monitor.” He leads her down the steps, to one of the stations nearest the window overlooking Chaldeas, and farthest from whatever Holmes and Da Vinci are working on. When she sits carefully in the chair, he shoots her a worried look out of the corner of her eye that she ignores. He leans in close to input his clearance ID over her shoulder - it's new, she notes, and it makes her stomach churn. Of course his old ID wouldn't work anymore, not after he erased Romani Archaman from existence. “And…” He pulls up eight small video feeds on screen, cycling through the cameras in each of Chaldea's eight sectors. “There we go. Just click on one to enlarge it so you can see all the cameras in each sector. Here you can search the time you want to view from, and here's the playback control-” 

She nods through his explanations. “Okay, I think I got it. Thank you.” She knows where to start at least - Sector four, near the dining hall, and then she'll see if she can trace him back-- 

Doctor Roman's hand rests, feather-light, on her shoulder, and he's still so close she can feel the loose parts of his short braid tickling her neck. "Are you sure you're alright?" She is very close to telling him to just stop worrying, but he continues with the same level of seriousness, “one of the… _ Flashes _ I saw… You were crying.”

She does punch him, in the arm, and he yelps like it actually hurts him, even though she knows it doesn't. 

“Not _ yet_, I wasn’t.” She almost feels bad about the guilty expression that puts on his face, but that's not something she wanted to know. “But I guess I'll keep you updated, Doctor.” 

He leaves her with a quiet _you can always call if you need me_, and it doesn't sound like he's just talking about helping with the security videos, but she needs to get to work - starting with sector four, outside the dining hall, just before seven. She lets the video run at double speed until she sees the bright red of flame of his cowl, and pauses the playback there, only to find there is no rewind function. Somehow, this organization which has overcome the laws of _time itself_ hasn't implemented a way to watch its video footage any way but forwards. If she wants to see where Karna has been, she'll have to guess a time in each sector camera, watch until she sees him, and then repeat the process with each proceeding camera in an incredibly tedious game of camera leapfrog. 

So be it. She has to at least try to see if she can figure out what happened to him, if only just to know exactly what she needs to apologize for.

She labours through hours of footage, almost in real time, until her eyes begin to blur and she pauses it again - recording-Karna is _ still _ in the midst of cleaning some kind of scorch marks, and has been for at least four recording-hours. She’s been scared to skip back too far until now, but by now she’s alone in the Command Room and she’s mere moments away from sobbing tears of exhaustion, so she sets the recording to eight a.m. and fast-forwards it at the highest speed. She gets through an hour of useless footage in five minutes, another hour in ten, twenty, and then the video flashes burning white and she’s smacking her hand over the screen in a panic. The monitor is awash with bright light and static around the edges, but between the glare she can see the dark outline of Karna’s form, shrouded in red, and the light seeming to originate from his right hand - where he wields his lance.

Karna knows fighting is forbidden outside of skirmishes in the simulator, and he is one of the most dutiful Servants at Chaldea who isn’t a knight - he’s never even let someone sneeze without offering them a _ bless you _ and a tissue he’s been storing god-knows-where. She sets the video back five minutes and allows it to play at normal speed; everything is fine, right up until something like an arrow buries itself in his chest. She can’t zoom into the video, not with the camera resolution set, but it looks like a flower on the end before it disappears. There’s no one else in frame except Karna - furious and calling forth his lance - and she laments the fact that there’s no audio on any of these cameras. (What kind of super advanced secret organization is this?) Even checking other cameras doesn’t give her a hint of who it was that attacked him, whoever they are carefully positioned in every camera’s blind spot. The flowering arrow is her only clue as to what happened; it clearly had more of a magical effect than a physical one, since Karna didn’t seem wounded when she saw him, and she cracks her knuckles. Marisbury Animasphere might have been an unethical bastard, but he took _ very _ good notes.

She’s read through six of the man’s dissertations on Servants with nothing to show for it when Mash pops her head into the Command Room with a tray of soup and sandwiches from Emiya and Beni-enma. It’s a welcome reprieve, to sit and enjoy a meal with Mash, who is happily relating a story about the training she has been taking with Sir Bedivere to learn normal swordplay and keep in shape. Even as a Demi-Servant, she has her health to care for - and Ritsuka can’t fight the urge to wrap her in a tight hug, and ruffle her hair, knowing physical health is the least of her problems as a Demi-Servant.

“I think you should come too, senpai!” Mash pats her on the arms, bubbling with excitement. “Physical education will be a good addition to your training in Magecraft, and it’s very good for self-discipline! Also, it’s so incredible to see non-magical swordplay from a real Knight of the Round Table, like seeing lost art-!” She’s completely absorbed in her own world for a good minute, one of mythology and appreciation of history, so much that she doesn’t notice Ritsuka lean away settle back into her own seat.

“Yeah, I’d like that.” She could probably use it too; between Singularities, she really lounges about a lot when she’s not testing strategies in the simulator. “You have to go easy on me though.”

“I’m sure you’ll pick it up quickly, and Sir Bedivere is a very good teacher! We should talk to him right now, help us work off Emiya-san’s sandwiches!” Mash holds her arms up in a show of strength, and Ritsuka nearly agrees, if not for the blocks of text on the screen to her right, detailing the extent of Atalante’s connections to the Goddess of the Hunt and how that grants her further power as a Servant. 

She shouldn’t do anything else until she’s resolved what happened with Karna. “I’m a little busy right now, but next time for sure, okay?”

“What are you doing?” Mash tilts her head, and she’s too cute to not answer.

“Just a little research into Archers,” Ritsuka admits.

“Do you need help?”

Ritsuka considers it, for a second; Mash is far more knowledgeable about mythology and Heroic Spirits than she is, but she might have to explain why she’s researching this so specifically, and she can’t bear to tell Mash that. If it made the girl think anything less of her… “No, I’m fine, just keeping updated on their abilities, you know? Besides, don’t you usually check on Andersen around now, to see that Nursery hasn’t run him ragged?”

“Oh! That’s right, and she’s been very excited since yesterday…” She picks up the tray they shared and pushes her chair back in after she gets up. “Well, good luck senpai!”

“Yeah,” she seems to need it, “thanks.”

She’s thirteen dissertations deep when there’s yet another interruption.

“Ms. Fujimaru,” someone calls from the back of the room, “there you are.”

Ritsuka glances away from the screen - and does her best not to wince at the glare of the fluorescent light above - to see one of the staff, a woman in her early thirties with a tight bob of auburn hair approaching her. She’s part of the team that operates the simulator, Ritsuka thinks. “Yes, erm-” She’s the one that likes to be called by her first name, what is it again? “M-Marian?”

“Miriam,” she corrects.

“Sorry, Miriam,” she probably wouldn’t have guessed it even without her current preoccupation, “that’s my mistake-”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I know you have a lot of things on your plate.” She pulls out the chair next to her and sits heavily in it, half leaning on the edge of the desk. “Actually, I’m here to add one more thing...”

Ritsuka grimaces, turning in her own chair to face Miriam and wondering what about her state right now makes it seem like she's got the capacity to handle more stress. "Now isn't a great time-" 

“It’s about the Lancer, Karna.”

Her whole body tenses involuntarily. 

“You see,” if Miriam notices, she doesn’t comment, “early this morning, he asked if he could use a simulator space for himself, and he hasn’t left since." 

She can feel goosebumps rising on her neck. She wasn’t emotionally prepared to know where he is just yet. Somehow coping with this mess was easier when she could pretend he just wasn’t around at all. “Is he training?” She keeps her voice surprisingly even, all things considered. “That’s not too abnormal, he’s pretty meticulous about that.”

“No, he’s been doing yoga, I think, actually. He asked for any replicas we had on file of Indian locales, preferably northern countrysides, where he could see a clear sky. I wouldn’t think it was odd except that he was in an altercation with another Servant yesterday-”

“Altercation-?” The arrow, the flash of fire. “You mean when he burned the wall!” She sits forward, leaning close to Miriam, enough that her sudden vigour seems to catch the other woman off-guard. “Were you there, do you know what happened?”

“No,” she answers nervously, “I happened to be having a coffee with a friend in the surveillance room when he was just attacked by an Assassin Servant, and retaliated, even knowing the rules. Now that I think about it, he was acting odd when I spoke to him then too…”

That’s a surprise. An Assassin Servant? It’s not as if none of them are proficient with bows, but what Assassin would be using magical, flower arrows--

Miriam startles when Ritsuka jumps out of her chair, running her fingers through her bangs; she knows _ exactly _ which Assassin has flowers for a weapon. She thought they had vowed to put the bow away, terrified and angry at that aspect of their Authority, but apparently, not if there is fun to be had tormenting people with it.

She has to find Kama.

Miriam is still staring at her. 

“Right, yes, you’re right, that’s weird and I should look into that,” Ritsuka says, to try and not seem as manic as she feels, pushing back her chair and closing down everything she has open on the monitor. “I’m gonna go do that, so, thanks! For the info! Have a good day,” she gives the woman a brief salute as she hurries out of the Command Room. 

She all but falls down the staircase that connects the upper viewing area to Chaldeas’ atrium, the closest empty room she can think of. There’s no Singularities to observe, no reason to be keeping a watch on the World Monitor, so it’s only Chaldeas in the room with her, and possibly Miriam upstairs if she hasn’t already left after Ritsuka’s sudden outburst. She’s shaking with anger as she closes her eyes and tries to pinpoint her contract with Kama, to find the god and summon them, but her thoughts are a tangled mess; her disappointment at trusting such a sadistic god to begin with, the fact that it never occurred to her that she was looking for someone who literally manipulates _ desire_, how stupid she could be to forget the weapons an enemy she barely fought a month ago used to try and _ kill _ her!

Her mental landscape is impossible to parse, chaotic, flashing with bright colours and images representing all of her numerous connections and finally she just _ yells_, pouring mana into her voice.

“Kama!”

The Assassin appears before her as summoned, floating blithely above eye-level, always making it such that she is looked up towards. She seems altogether too pleased, and Ritsuka’s anger rockets through her veins. “Yes, Master? Whatever could you require-”

She hisses, “I know what you did to Karna.”

“Oh?” Kama’s smile is deadly, slicing across her borrowed face. She lounges in mid-air, her back arching in such an overtly sexual way it can’t be anything but mockery. “Did he tell you, or did you find out firsthand-”

“You will _ never _ do that again,” Ritsuka orders, and Kama’s eyes narrow, her sadistic glee dampened.

She straightens out, crossing her arms and glaring down at Ritsuka. “Or what?”

“_Or_ _nothing_.” Ritsuka isn’t going to play this game. She hates the role of _Master_, does everything she can to not be just someone imposing her will onto others because she has some small amount of control over them, but there are things she doesn’t think are unreasonable. Particularly maddened Berserkers can’t fight or destroy whatever they want, even if they can’t understand why, evil servants can’t do whatever they please and hurt others because they don’t care, kings and emperors do not get to enforce their idea of law, and even gods who have an entirely incomprehensible sense of morality can’t be allowed to ignore common decency, purely because they _want_ to. “You aren’t going to play with people like that as long as you’re a Servant of Chaldea, because I am telling you so.”

“That’s cute,” Kama sneers, turning her nose up, “but you know, we don’t have to listen to your plain, non-command orders, _ Master_.”

“No,” Ritsuka concedes, “you don’t.” Kama shakes her hair out and beams, _ so _ proud of herself, before Ritsuka continues, “but no one is forcing you to stay here, either. _ You _ answered my summons, I offered you another chance at life, and _ you _ took it. Yes, what happened to you _ is _ terrible, and you have my sympathies, but it doesn’t give you the right to torture other people to make yourself feel better.” 

“Then use a Command Spell to stop me, if you’re so _ concerned _ about the others.” Kama floats farther away, her steps swaying on the air as she approaches Chaldeas and caresses the coastline of Africa with two fingers. “I am a God of Love manifest.” She turns and fixes the full force of her gaze on Ritsuka, the cut of her violet irises as cold as the depths of an icy cavern. “What right do _ you _ have to tell a god what they ought not do, what pain or pleasure they can’t inflict under their domains, what whims they haven’t earned-!”

“It won’t make what happened to you go away,” Ritsuka says, interrupting Kama’s tirade. She can try and scare her all she wants, but Kama is not the most complex, or even the angriest, god-approaching thing Ritsuka has faced. Kama is envious and self-pitying, but Ritsuka wouldn’t have offered a contract to the god if that was all she was; if she hadn’t shown a hint of regret, of a desire to overcome her past. “You’re never going to be anything except the ash Shiva made you as long as you keep fanning the embers of your hatred, Kama.”

“You-” The god is speechless, quaking with affront and rage. “Insolent-” She drops back down to the ground, the concrete crumbling beneath the sudden immense weight of her Authority. “What do you know!?” 

She summons her _ vajra _ and leaps - sending more concrete flying until it crashes into the walls of the atrium. The point is aimed right at her stomach. Ritsuka has all the time to realize she’s defenseless save for her Command Spells - and she can’t-- She knows a single word can be a command, that it need not be spoken, but there is a god’s blade nary an inch from her and--

Nothing.

There is no pain, or impact. Just Kama’s wide, violet eyes staring bewildered into Ritsuka’s own. 

“What-” The _ vajra _ trembles against the fabric of Ritsuka’s shirt, tendrils of solidified shadow wound around the handle of the weapon and Kama’s arm. More grasping shades hold the god in place around her legs, her waist, her throat, whipping free from the shadows cast around the room to envelop her. Her confusion becomes fear as it consumes her whole body, climbing around her neck, concealing her scream as it closes over her mouth.

“Think on your actions in silence and repent.”

The last thing Ritsuka sees are her terrified eyes, before they are covered in darkness and she is left standing in front of person-shaped void, held perfectly still in mid-air. She stumbles backwards, heart still pounding from the near-attack, turning haltingly towards the source of the voice. 

Floating at least six feet above the ground, left arm outstretched, is Doctor Roman, but his form has reverted back to his ancient robes, his hair loose from its ponytail and cascading down his back. One ring - from his index finger - is hovering just out of his reach, glowing brightly and illuminating the missing black tattoos on his arm. He looks too much like Solomon - not himself, but the mass of demons that called themselves by that name, who threatened the whole of the world, and especially her life in particular - and it makes her skin crawl.

“Doctor…!” The sound of her voice makes him look down towards her, and he smiles at her the same way he used to when he was caught napping after claiming he wasn’t tired, and that soothes her a little bit. “What are you doing?”

“Ah, I saw some of this in the flashes, from before, and well- Assassins are at a disadvantage against Casters, so I thought…” He slowly lowers to the ground as he rambles, until his toes are barely ghosting along the floor. Floating seems to be a side-effect of his casting, or at least something he doesn’t notice he does when he’s using other magic. “I was watching over you, just in case. I didn’t know if Kama would go through with attacking you…” He begins examining her for injuries. “You’re not hurt, right?”

“No, I’m fine.” A little shaken, at worst. Ritsuka is fairly confident that she wasn’t in mortal danger, not when her life is tantamount to those of her Servants, but whatever Kama planned to do probably would have _ hurt_. “But is she…?” She casts a worried glance towards the empty space where Kama is, except that it’s not empty, it’s a solid shadow that looks like the god was torn right out of reality. 

“Oh, that spell can’t harm her. It’s just something to restrain her until she’s thought about what she’s done.” He sounds like he’s talking about a time-out, rather than trapping someone in a perfect coffin of coalesced darkness, putting his hands on his hips. And then suddenly, all his confidence pours out of him on a tired sigh, his head drooping limply forward. “Ahh- But Ritsuka-chan is too reckless. I’m glad I was here…” He looks at her plaintively through his bangs. “You need to stop yelling at gods, it’s bad for my health.”

It’s significantly worse for hers, but, “No promises.” Who’s to say that Ishtar won’t have cooked up another insane scheme come summertime? Perhaps if the gods acted less ridiculous, she’d yell less. “Besides, you’re a Servant right now, your health is basically perfect!”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t still feel like I’m having a heart attack,” he pouts. “What will I do if these stress levels carry over when I become human again!”

“You _ should _ be more worried about carrying over your sleeping habits, but go off I guess,” she shrugs. 

Doctor Roman’s pout deepens, but before he can retort, his gaze sharpens; the King of Mages once more. He mutters something under his breath in the language Ritsuka doesn’t understand, moving to stand with one shoulder braced in front of her - between her and Kama. With another utterance, his ring begins to glow again and the shadows slough away from Kama, climbing back up his arm to reform his tattoos. The god crumbles to her hands and knees on the floor, gasping for breath, her _ vajra _ clattering to the ground and dissipating as dried petals. She looks impossibly small when she turns her face up to glare at them, and Ritsuka can’t help but notice the tear-stains rolling down her cheeks.

“So, have you repented?”

Kama curls her lip at him and Doctor Roman frowns. The tattoos begin crawling away again, swirling towards the god, and Ritsuka swears they form a mouth - full of fangs and dribbling black saliva - and somewhere in the blackness a ruby-red eye stares out at her. 

Ritsuka puts her hand over the Doctor’s arm - the shadows stop and he turns to look at her questioningly. “Doctor, don’t. She won’t do it again.” She turns to look at Kama, who, despite her attempts to maintain her defiance, flinches away from the magic and can’t conceal her terror. 

“… If you’re sure, Ritsuka-chan.” Doctor Roman lowers his arm, and she isn’t mistaken; there is _ something’s _ eye that meets her own, assessing her, before blinking out of sight as the shadow returns to its inert tattoo form. “But if she threatens you again, we will not hesitate to send her back to the Throne.”

“That won’t be necessary, right Kama?” The god looks up at her, now, specifically, still bearing the weight of her previous insults, still furious, but defeated. “There’s nothing to gain through cruelty,” she reiterates, hoping that maybe this time it’ll get through to her. 

If it does, she can’t tell - Kama makes an incredibly unflattering constipated face, leaps a safe distance away, shoots one last wary glare in Doctor Roman’s direction, and then disappears. 

“Are you really-?” The Doctor begins to ask, his expression transparently worried, but she nods resolutely. 

“She doesn't want to be alone, and especially doesn't want to return to nothing.” Even just minutes in magical _ time out _ was enough to render her from god to terrified girl. How much of that is the god and how much of it is the vessel, Ritsuka doesn't know, but in the end, it's irrelevant. This Kama will do anything to avoid that fate, even becoming a Servant to a Master whose ideals conflict with her own. “She just needed a reminder that she's not all powerful here. I can't have her doing-” _ what she did to Karna again _ catches in her throat, sticks to the roof of her mouth and leaves a bitter taste on her tongue. She might have dealt with the root problem, but she has yet to do the hardest thing - taking responsibility for her part in what happened to Karna. “A-Anyway…”

Doctor Roman is watching her with such soft, caring eyes. “You have somewhere else to be, right?”

“Stop doing that!” She punches him again, and he yelps as performatively as before. She doesn’t want to know the future, has told the Doctor to act like he doesn’t see it unless he thinks it’s something they can change - the end of the world, again, for example - because he should know being human means being uncertain and trying anyway. “But… You’re not wrong.”

He nurses where she punched him, nodding in the direction of the simulator rooms. “Do your best.”

It’s only three simple syllables, spoken in a gentle, encouraging voice, and she feels brilliantly warm. She’s swallowed a star that lights her from the inside out, powering her so that she might face _ anything_. 

“Yeah,” she murmurs, stepping backwards so she can still face Doctor Roman, absorb every last glimmer of support from his expression. “Oh-! But no following me this time! I don’t need you to watch over this, alright!?” His answering laugh is nervous, embarrassed, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck - soothing whatever itch he gets there whenever he’s uncomfortable - and she turns to make her way to the simulators.

She races there, dodging every obstacle and curious Servant, ignoring her own discomfort, cresting on the wave of courage that carries her right to the door of the central hub. The door slides open for her, and it is Miriam who is sitting at the monitors with a travel mug held gently between her hands. The woman takes one look at Ritsuka’s hunched, panting form and inclines her head towards simulator C, just behind her to the left, without a word. As she stumbles her way past, she doesn’t have the breath to spare to thank Miriam, who turns the observation monitor for room C off, and spins her chair to face away from the door entirely. 

The last of her borrowed bravery gets her through the final door separating her and Karna. It closes behind her, and the momentary darkness is gone like blinking, leaving her standing in a brightly-lit plain that extends as far as she can see. A wide river bisects it, drawing her attention to the cultivated fields which lead then to a busy town, and an even larger city she can see looming over the horizon - or it would be a busy town, except that she doesn’t see a soul moving between any of the buildings. Not a single person has been constructed in this simulation, it seems, as she crosses between the rows of wheat and other crops, navigating the empty streets. There are signs of life; clothes hang from strings tied between buildings, woven mats are laid out in wide lanes where produce sits unattended in straw baskets, and through open windows she can see fires burning perfectly in stone ovens though no one exists to use them. It’s a skeleton of a world, just the outline of a town hastily constructed to hold up the illusion that this is _ elsewhere_. She can’t help but wonder if this resembles the world Karna grew up in, if, were there people bustling about, she might be able to understand him better. There have yet to be any singularities in India, she can only imagine what his life was like from the textbooks and records at Chaldea, and they only paint half a picture for her. Is this town nostalgic for him, or does it perhaps feel haunted, half-formed as it is? Is he tormented by its empty similarity while he hides from her here?

Ritsuka wanders the streets for a little while longer, convinced that someone will appear around the next corner; a woman with a basket held against her hip, maybe a child chasing after a runaway ball, _ anyone_, until she comes across a circular plaza where she finds the only other living person so far.

Seated, lotus-position, at the edge of a simple well in the center, with his face turned up towards an unmoving noonday sun, is Karna. His eyes are closed as the light washes over him, and Ritsuka’s heart catches in her throat. He is too peaceful - surrounded by warm sunlight, positively glowing in its embrace as it glints off his armor and sets the crystals decorating his chest ablaze, seeming all the more the child of the sun than he ever can in Chaldea’s frigid halls - too _ beautiful_, and she almost convinces herself it’s better to just leave him be. 

She wrestles down that cowardice, that desire to turn around and hope he never knows she was here, because no matter the consequences, she cannot leave what happened unaddressed; it will sit like an exposed wound, fester and grow infected with resentment in time. She steels herself, takes one final trembling inhale, and steps into the plaza.

“Karna,” she says, the only thing she can force through her throat to announce herself. He turns his chin away from the sun to face her instead, watching her carefully with clear, blue eyes. “I know what Kama did,” she starts, and Karna’s eyes widen, his panic from this morning echoed in his expression. She’ll lose all her nerve if he runs away now, so she throws her hands up like she’s soothing a startled animal. “I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, but I promise, I’ll be right out of your hair!” 

He doesn’t move, though he does lower his gaze. It’s a small mercy; it’s easier to face him when she isn’t pinned by piercing blue.

“First, I talked to her. She won’t do that to anyone else,” she assures. Ritsuka also doubts she’ll ever appear in the same room as Doctor Roman again, but that’s not important. “Second, I’m…” Her mouth flaps uselessly, all sound caught somewhere around her stomach instead of forming the apology she needs to make. A simple _ sorry _ is insufficient. She _ is _ sorry, but it’s not enough to say that and not acknowledge what she’s done to deserve the regret. 

It’s just that it’s very hard to put into words.

It’s so much harder than she expected, especially when he’s staring at her again.

“I know what Kama did,” she repeats, “and that what happened… I know that wasn’t…” She doesn’t know how to phrase it, every which way she thinks to do it either too callous, or too defensive; _ what happened wasn’t your desire _ twists painfully in her gut, as true is it might be, and she can’t say it. “Your fault. It was-” _ My fault_. That, too, sticks somewhere behind her teeth, and she can’t admit it, fine, but she has to press on. “I took advantage of it, I didn’t stop you, and I’m- I’m _ sorry_.” 

She bows, crossing her hands over her knees. She doesn’t know if Karna will understand what she’s doing - Chaldea is such a multicultural place, where no one has had to maintain the same levels of formality and deference that were common in her home country - but it’s not really for his sake. She’s conveying her remorse in the most sincere way she knows how, and hopes he will understand _ that_. 

After a terrifying ten straight seconds of holding her position without any hint of a response, she’s paralyzed, too scared to lift her head and see Karna’s reaction for herself. Her whole body is shaking, her hands clenched tightly together to try and at least hold her arms still. Her skin feels flushed and hot and itchy with shame. 

“Master.” There is a weight on her shoulder, and a heat that has nothing to do with her or the temperature of the simulated midday sun. “You don’t need to prostrate yourself-”

She shoots upright, stepping out of his reach. Her shoulder still tingles through three layers of clothing. “I just wanted to apologize. You don’t have to forgive me,” because he will, won’t he, the Hero of Charity, who doesn’t bear a grudge against his enemies, who would forgive even her unforgivable transgressions. She fusses with her bangs, twists and straightens each strand obsessively from where it’s fallen out of place, desperately avoiding his eyes. “I just needed you to know I’m not- I don’t want to be that kind of person.” Does that make her apology sound selfish? It _ is_; she doesn’t want him to dislike her as much as she wants to make amends, but she doesn’t want to give him that impression. This isn’t about her feelings, it’s about his.

He’s still so _quiet_, so she makes the mistake of glancing at him. There is something unhappy about his expression looking at her that causes her heart to sink into her gut. 

“A-Anyway,” she continues, tugging on her ponytail in a panic, “I’ll do whatever you think will make up for it! I understand if you don’t trust me to be your Master anymore, so I could…” Her vision starts to wobble, a maelstrom of fear and regret and misery bubbling up from the little box she’d had them hastily stuffed into while she focused on just physically getting to this point. Considering that Karna may not wish to be her Servant any longer is different than confronting it. “I could transfer your contract away, and you could be a Servant of Chaldea, like Da Vinci-”

“I have no interest in that,” he interjects, and it’s like her guts are filled with stones. The little box crumbles under their weight.

“O-Oh,” she gasps, “of course.” It sounds like he means he has no wish to stay at Chaldea; can she blame him for not wanting to be trapped in a place with someone who abused his good and charitable nature? Why else would he have asked for a ghostly town such as this to hide in? “Then…” She laughs, even though it’s not funny, even though it is gravel grating its way up her throat. “I’ve never had to dismiss a Servant. I don’t know how, but I could always ask h-how to send you back to the Throne-” It’s difficult to get the words out when each one rides on the edge of a sob she’s only just barely holding back. Her necklace of kiss marks feels more like a noose.

Oh, this must be the future that Doctor Roman saw.

“Is that what you want?” Karna’s gaze is unyielding - blue like a vast, empty sky, which has no reason to care for the insignificant things that exist on the earth below. Ritsuka knows in her heart that isn’t true for Karna - he holds so much affection for everything, children, crabs (inexplicably), shared meals, calm places, and every other small joy he can take pleasure in. Her heart is just filled with lead, leaving her with a miserable, self-pitying brain that can only lament that she might lose him.

“Of course not! I don’t want you to leave, because I-” 

_ No_. 

She can’t say that, not now, not after what she did. If her feelings are worth anything, he should hear them spoken with joy, not used to leash him to her with guilt. She lowers her head to hide the tears she can’t stop from falling. “All that matters is what _you_ want.”

“Then, forgive me,” he says. With one long stride he is in her space, blocking out the light from above, eclipsing her in a cold shadow. With one fluid movement, he has her face in his hands, tilting her chin up to see him, but she squeezes her eyes shut at least so that she doesn’t have to see him watching her cry so pathetically.

And then she is gently kissed by the sun’s warmth again. 

It’s nothing like last night - she always laughed at novels that described kissing as _all-consuming_ or _a battle of dominance_ and other ridiculous hyperbole, but it really had felt like Karna was intent on devouring everything there was to know of her in that moment, mapping her whole existence by sound, taste, touch - something devoid of reckless passion, but just as heart-stopping. His unruly hair tickles the bridge of her nose, wisps of flame dancing across the exposed skin of her arms as his cloak moves almost of its own will to loosely enclose them both, overwhelming her with softness that only draws her attention to the barest pressure of his lips slotting affectionately between hers. 

When he pulls away, he seems very proud of himself, tongue swiping over his bottom lip. 

Ritsuka stares at his self-satisfied expression, his near-imperceptibly flushed cheeks, her mouth agape. “Wha-” More tears fall from pure bewilderment now than before, and he swipes them away with his thumbs.

“I was told I had a talent for speech by my peers,” he begins, explaining _ nothing_, “one I only ever used to criticise, to insult, or to wound, rarely to be understood. I do not trust myself to communicate well with words, but-” He catches her earlobe between his right thumb and forefinger, pressing deliberately into the divot created where she had Ozymandias help her pierce them after Valentine’s Day. His eyebrows furrow, his lips pursing into the small peak of a subtle pout that always sits adorably on his face. “It seems I am still not understood by my actions…”

“You’re right,” she wails, beating her hands against his the expanse of pale skin between the embedded gemstones buried in his flesh, “I don’t get it! How can you say you want-! You disappeared right after I… I took advantage of what Kama did to you!”

He stops her by taking gentle hold of her hands in his, pressing them to his chest. She refuses to be distracted by the steady, strong beat of his heart beneath her fingers. “As did I.”

She fixes him with a look of blatant confusion. It’s not like Kama shot her with a flowering arrow of love too.

“I took advantage of the curse, used it as an excuse to touch you after I became tired of resisting,” he clarifies, and the colour in his cheeks is starting to become very noticable. “I only fled because, when my mind was cleared again, I worried that I had abused your kindness.”

Her mind is reeling; _ kindness_? All of this panic and regret because Karna thinks she’s so selfless she’d let someone use her to exhaust a sex curse, rather than the very obvious reason that she just wanted _him_? “Do you think I’m someone that will just sleep with- With anyone out of pity?” 

“… Ah,” he releases her hands as he recedes into himself, away from her. His gaze becomes distant, looking somewhere thousands of miles away from here - she can almost see the regret taking the form of a beautiful dark-haired woman reflected in his eyes. “I’ve insulted you-” 

“No-!” She grabs his face this time, forcing him to look at _her_, grounding him here again. It works; the only person reflected in his eyes now is the one right in front of him. “I’m not insulted. I’m just…” 

Until now, she has been careful to downplay any romantic feelings she’s developed for Karna, afraid any blatant affection might be taken as a request that he would indulge her, charitable man that he is. It has always been a silly handshake here and there, offering to help him on whatever errands he’s taken around Chaldea, inviting him to every excursion; those were all acceptable things that didn’t have to come with the expectations her deeper feelings might place on him, expectations Karna would meet out of graciousness. She did try to drop hints as well, though, in hopes that he - only if he was interested - would take initiative, and then she could accept without guilt. God only knows how much more deeply she fell for him every evening she spent reading with him in her room, leaning up against his back as she studied whatever new material she’d found and explained it to him while he listened patiently. And every morning she woke up, book placed safely on her nightstand and a cloak of tempered fire cradling her sleeping form… She fights with months and months of practice at not being honest, her heart shaping sentiment into words her brain has come into the habit of trimming down to fit in a safe, ambiguous package. Now is the time to be crystal clear. 

Karna may not believe words are sufficient for people to understand each other, but she's going to try for him. 

“If I’m going to sleep with someone, it’s _ only _ because I like them, first and foremost."

“Oh,” he sighs, like it’s some kind of revelation. 

“And I was in my right mind yesterday,” she reminds him, letting go of his face to slide her fingers down his neck, over his shoulders, around the gold armor on his arms, so she can press their fingers against each other. He trembles wherever she touches, stumbling half a step in her direction - and _seeing_ her effect on him, that’s a heady feeling. “I didn’t do anything I didn’t want,” she explains, twisting her fingers around his until he finally takes the hint and twines their hands together, “or haven’t wanted for a long time.”

He hangs off her every word, and it’s almost too much; the intensity of his stare as it drifts constantly between her eyes and her lips makes her feel completely vulnerable, every last warning bell in her mind blaring that she has to get away, cover his eyes and hide or he’ll see her feelings, but that’s the _point_, this time. His hands are always so warm, and she’s allowed to enjoy it. They’re perfect, the warmth of sitting just the right distance from a campfire or nursing a steaming mug of tea. She loves it--

That makes her heart skip a beat. She’s not quite ready to say _that_ much. It almost makes her lose her nerve, but the flush on Karna’s cheeks is climbing up to his ears, and she still hasn’t said what she needs to, to leave him without a doubt.

“Vasusena, son of Rahda and Adhiratha,” she says, precise in her annunciation of the names, just like Rama taught her - she doubts he believed her excuse that it was all in the interest of scholarly accuracy, but the ends justify the means - and he goes completely still. There is no resistance when she lifts her right arm, bringing their joined hands up to her lips. “Karna.” She kisses, first, the golden edge of his gauntlet, and then presses her lips against the exposed skin just below his thumb. “I like you, most of all.”

There. Everything she’s brave enough to say has been said.

He’s still staring at her, without moving. She tries to untangle their hands, but his grip is like iron. She didn’t break him, right? “Um, Karna- _Uwah_!” He yanks her forward by their shared grip, and her chin smacks into the gem nestled in the center of his chest. She goes briefly cross-eyed from the jolt of pain - not that it would matter much, all she can see is white skin that transitions sharply into black, and flecks of gold.

“I am truly one of the most fortunate Heroic Spirits, to have been blessed with an ideal Master, and her affections,” he murmurs, and even though she can’t see his face - imagines he’s deliberately hiding his expression from her - she can hear his heartbeat. Strong, as always, but fitful and too quick. “I should be satisfied with just that, but…” His hold on her loosens, just enough that she can peer out from under his chin to meet his eyes. “Ritsuka. May I kiss you?” 

She can’t help but smile, more tears overflowing with the outpouring of emotion built up inside her - but she’s used up all her sadness, leaving nothing but happiness behind. She raises herself up onto her toes to meet him halfway, breathing the word into him, “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote.
> 
> 1\. Kama's pronouns are based on perception: Kama's malicious psyche acting at the forefront of the Assassin's mind refers to himself as "he" becase he was a male god in life; Karna, who grew up worshipping those gods knew of him as male; Ritsuka and Roman both see the fused Pseudo-Servant form and see a young woman, thus "she"  
All of these are still correct because why would a god give a damn? 
> 
> 2\. I dropped a lot of mythology references and a lot of anglicised words that I'm not 100% sure I am correct about, so if anyone is more familiar with this mythology, religion or language and would like to correct me, please do! Fate doesn't always seem to care how they butcher a mythos, but I do, and i don't want to disrespect the mythological source material and culture to be faithful to the Big Anime Rewrite of it. 
> 
> 3\. Nasu can pry Romani Archaman from my cold dead hands. I don't need to explain myself, he's back and he's here and Everything Is Fine.


End file.
